American-Developed Abort System Helped Save a Russian Space Crew

By Bob Granath

Spaceflight is inherently dangerous. From the earliest days of designing spacecraft for crews, engineers have looked for ways astronauts could be rescued in the event of a mishap involving the rocket. An American-developed option — a launch escape system, or escape tower – was copied by the Soviet Union and it saved the lives of two Russian cosmonauts.

After the formation of NASA in 1958, Bob Gilruth led a team of 35 engineers with the agency’s Space Task Group at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. They were given the job of developing the United States’ first human spaceflight program – Project Mercury. Plans called for the one-person capsule to be launched on short sub-orbital missions by a Redstone rocket and to Earth orbit by a modified Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile.

Developing a vehicle to be flown by humans requires managing risk to make it as safe as possible. As NASA was designing the Mercury spacecraft, many questions had to be answered.

The person addressing many of those problems was Max Faget (pronounced: fah-ZHAY), the group’s chief of the Flight Systems Division and primary designer of the new spacecraft.

“Bob Gilruth came in one day and says, ‘what are you going to do if the Atlas blows up on the way up?’ ” Faget said during an interview for NASA’s Oral History Project inJune 1997. “I didn’t have an answer for that.”

“Well, you’d better get an answer for it,” Gilruth said.

Faget did.

A launch escape system tower was added on top of the spacecraft. It could quickly pull the Mercury capsule from the launch vehicle in the event of an impending explosion. This approach was controlled by a combination of an automated emergency detection system and activation by the astronaut.

“I’ve always said that was an invention on command,” Faget said.

Click here to read more about Max Faget

The escape tower could be used while the rocket was still on the launch pad, or during its ascent. For Project Mercury, it was designed to deliver a relatively large thrust for a short time sending the capsule a safe distance away from the rocket.

After the tower separated, a parachute recovery system would provide a safe landing on water or, if necessary, on the ground. During normal flights, the escape tower was jettisoned after reaching the point where it was no longer needed.

A similar system was used for NASA’s Apollo Moon landing program and is planned for the agency’s upcoming Orion spacecraft. The Soyuz capsule, used by the Soviet Union and Russia since 1967, and the Shenzhou, flown by China since 1999, both use similar launch escape systems.

While the United States astronauts never have had to use an abort system, an escape tower saved a Russian crew.

On Sept. 26, 1983, Vladimir Titov and Gennadi Strekalov were strapped into their Soyuz spacecraft atop their booster rocket, ready for a visit to the Soviet Union’s Earth orbiting Salyut 7 space station occupied by the two-man crew of Soyuz T-9.

At 90 seconds prior to liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a valve in the rocket failed to close. RP-1 kerosene propellant began spilling, starting a fire. A launch control engineer activated the launch escape system. The motor fired, pulling the Soyuz spacecraft, encased within its shroud, from the booster. The rocket exploded in a huge fireball.

The crew module dropped free from the shroud. A fast-opening emergency parachute deployed, with the cosmonauts landing about two and a half miles from the launch pad. The crewmembers were bruised by the acceleration causing them to endure 15 to 16 g’s, but they did not require medical attention.

While working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas in 1995, Faget had an opportunity to meet officials of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. In a lighthearted conversation with one of their air force generals, Faget mentioned his role in developing the first launch escape system.

“You know, I invented the escape rocket, and (it) saved your crew,” Faget said. “I never got a medal for that.”

Faget explained he was “teasing,” but the general wrote something on a card and handed it to him. It said, “I owe you one space medal.”

“It turned out that the two cosmonauts (Titov and Strekalov) were both in Houston at the same time,” Faget said. “They arranged for these guys to give me this little medal.”

Faget then had an opportunity to learn how well the system worked and what it felt like.

“We were up there in the Soyuz waiting for the launch,” Titov said. “All of a sudden it started shaking, and I said to myself, ‘Something’s going to happen.’ Next thing I knew, I was 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) up in the air.”

Faget noted that the Russian general stated the system worked perfectly.

NASA’s Mercury launch escape system tower was tested eight times with small, solid propellant rockets fired from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. But, it was once used unexpectedly on an unpiloted test flight due to the failure of the Atlas rocket.

Mercury-Atlas 3 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 25, 1961. At about 20 seconds into the flight, the Atlas rocket failed to start pitching out over the Atlantic Ocean and continued to climb straight up.

At 43 seconds after liftoff, the escape tower activated the moment the range safety officer sent the destruct command to the rocket to protect populated areas. The Mercury capsule flew up to 4.5 miles and landed just over one mile off shore, 7 minutes and 19 seconds after liftoff.

The Atlas booster was destroyed and a rain of fiery debris fell back to Earth with no damage or injuries. But, the spacecraft was recovered by a helicopter less than 15 minutes after splashdown and immediately returned to the Cape.

While the mission failed to achieve its goal of testing the Mercury capsule in space, it did confirm that had an astronaut been aboard, he would have survived in good health.

With launch escape system towers continuing to be used by the Soyuz and Shenzhou capsules, as well as the future Orion spacecraft, they likely will be used well into the future to reduce risk and ensure safety for the people aboard.

© 2020 SpaceAgeChronicle.com All Rights Reserved

Space Vehicle Abort Systems Come in Many Forms

By Bob Granath

While launch escape systems have long been a part of the human spaceflight programs of the United States, Russia and China, they are not the only options to be employed.

The first human spaceflight was launched by the Soviet Union in 1961 with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard. His Vostok capsule, and the five other flights in that program, were equipped with ejection seats similar to those in military aircraft for use in an emergency.

While the Vostok ejection seat was available, but never used during ascent, the system was the way all of Russia’s early cosmonauts landed. On re-entry, impact inside the spherical-shaped capsule was deemed too rough for humans.

When a Vostok was still 4.3 miles from the ground, the hatch was released and the cosmonaut was ejected two seconds later. At 8,200 feet from the ground, the parachute for the spacecraft opened. The cosmonaut descended on a separately parachute.

The only U.S. spacecraft equipped with ejection seats were the two-man Gemini missions between 1965 and 1966 and the first four test flights of the Space Shuttle in 1981 and 1982.

There was no escape method for the Space Shuttle starting with the fifth mission as crews grew to as many as eight. The shuttle was designed to make it as safe and reliable as possible. But, with the loss of the seven-member crews of the shuttles Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, it was obvious spaceflight — like all forms of transportation — can never be made 100 percent safe.

In 2014. NASA began working with industry partners to develop 21st century space vehicles with crew safety a paramount concern. Under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, both the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner will use “pusher” rockets on the side of the spacecraft for launch emergencies.

The SpaceX system is designed to abort with eight Super Draco engines if the need arises. This concept was first checked out in a Pad Abort Test conducted at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on May 6, 2015. SpaceX also performed an In-Flight Abort Test on Jan. 19, 2020, confirming the Crew Dragon’s launch escape system worked as designed with the Falcon 9 rocket traveling through the launch period of maximum dynamic stress.

The Crew Dragon’s first piloted flight launched two astronauts to the International Space Station on May 30, 2020.

Click here to read more about the first piloted Commercial Crew mission.

Starliner capsules employs a similar system successfully tested Nov. 4, 2019 at NASA’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The “pusher’ abort system was available during an unpiloted Starliner Orbital Flight Test taking place on Dec. 20, 2019, and a second is planned for mid-November 2020. If successful, this should clear the way for the first piloted Boeing Commercial Crew flight in 2021.

With industry partners concentrating on ferrying astronauts to the space station, NASA now is focusing on exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. As part of the Artemis Program, the agency is developing the Orion spacecraft to be launched atop the Space Launch System, the largest, most powerful rocket ever built. The new effort is designed to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface. From there, NASA will use what was learned on and around the Moon to send astronauts to Mars.

The new vehicle also will be topped by a launch abort system similar to the one used in Apollo. On July 2, 2019, NASA successfully tested the Orion abort system during launch atop a repurposed Peacekeeper missile.

As spaceflight always will be inherently dangerous, emergency flight systems will continue to be a part of future spacecraft designs for help ensure crew safety.

© 2020 SpaceAgeChronicle.com All Rights Reserved